(S/E) From the front door, cross the A41 road and turn left to the junction with the A534. Turn right (signposted Nantwich) and walk along the nearside verge until you reach a footpath opposite Withy Lane. Turn right through the gate and follow the footpath beyond, as it descends to the valley bottom (bypass any boggy patches to the left). Walk uphill with a hedge on your right, swinging left at the top of the field. Cross a stile on your right and follow the right-hand edge of the field beyond. At the end of the field, cross a further stile on your right and turn left along a farm track.
(1) Cross a stile beside a farm gate then follow the track to the right in front of a low sandstone outcrop. Keep right of a belt of woodland, then turn right over a stile and then left over a second. Continue below the woodland edge. At a corner, turn left over a stile, still with the woodland edge on your left. At the end of the field, turn left over a stile into the wood. The path leads along just inside the woodland fence; ignore a stile into the field on your right. Shortly afterwards, at a waymarked post, turn left into the woodland, up a small valley. Go up some stone steps and over a stile. Follow the buttressed wall ahead (with glimpses of Broxton Old Hall beyond it) to a field gate and then to the road.
(2) When you reach the road, turn right and then immediately left into Hall Lane. After half a mile, turn right at a T-junction. Ignore the first turning on the right (Sandy Lane), but take the second (Lower Sandy Lane).
(3) At the end of the lane, go through the gate ahead of you into a paddock. Follow the footpath straight ahead to a stile, some wooden steps and a metal kissing gate. Keep on in the same direction over a further stile to a second kissing gate. A narrow path leads through brackeny woodland beyond; bear right until you reach a crossing path at the foot of a sloping ride. Follow the telegraph poles uphill along the ride until you reach a National Trust waymark; turn left. This path leads to a minor summit, where you keep left past another NT waymark and head briefly downhill. Go straight over a crossing path and up the hill beyond (signposted Maiden Castle). Towards the top of the slope, stone steps lead up past rocky outcrops.
(4) When you reach the top, turn left along the Sandstone Trail and up some further steps to Maiden Castle. Keep left, following the Sandstone Trail along the edge of the escarpment.
(5) The path descends slightly; before it starts to climb again and as a footpath joins from the right, turn left off the Sandstone Trail and into woodland. Bear right and follow a descending path through the trees. At the bottom of the wood, follow the fence, looking out for a kissing gate and field gate on your left. Leave the wood and follow the field edge beyond to a road, then turn right past a cottage on the left.
(6) Beyond a second cottage, on the right, leave the road via a stile into a field on your left. Cross to a stile through a hedge and then turn left. After another stile, skirt round a tennis court to a further stile, then turn left across the next paddock. In the far left-hand corner, concealed behind an outbuilding, is a stile which leads via a narrow path to a stile into a driveway, down which you turn right.
(7) On reaching the road, turn left through the village, and then right into Broomhill Lane. At the end of Broomhill Lane, turn right. After 250m, turn left into Ivy Farm Lane, and at the end of the road turn right. When you reach the main road, cross and turn left along the pavement.
(8) At the next road junction, turn right into Old Coach Road. (If time is desperately short you can follow the main road all the way back to the start, but the route described here diverts onto quieter roads for part of the way, at the expense of extra distance.)
(9) After 400m, turn left into Withy Lane and follow it back to the main road. Turn right and walk back along the main road to reach the A41 roundabout and the Egerton Arms.(S/E)
